Elaborate Lying for Super Surprises

Hiiiiiiii!!!! =)  Anyone else enjoy their weird split up 4-day week last week?!

I actually liked it...although it was like having 2 Mondays = /

other than that, I really liked how last week was broken up =)

SOOOOO my weekend was AMAZING!

I have had this MASSIVE secret for the past like six weeks...that is also one of the other reasons I have been so absent. I didn't want to accidentally spill the beans!!

My mom, sister, and I managed to throw my dad a suprise party for his 50th birthday!

Now his birthday isn't until the END of July but in order for it to be a surprise, we knew it would need to be earlier.  So we found some invitations we liked and my mom sent them out. The big issue was figuring out a way to get him out and away from the house - we needed a good reason and then something for him to do.

Thankfully we have amazing people in our lives who can entertain him AND keep a secret =) The Husband, brother-in-law, and some friends took Dad out off-shore fishing!!! Thank goodness!! Ok so he was out of the house...oh and our excuse for needing him out/encouraging him to make plans??? Mom was throwing a Pampered Chef party! =)

So now I became part of one of the MOST elaborate lies EVER in my LIFE! No seriously - this is how it goes...

We have to SOMEHOW convince my dad that we had a pampered chef party, so my mom cooks a pampered chef dish at her house so that it smells like she hosted something; so that there are dishes in the sink; AND so that there are leftovers...yeah, we went ALL. OUT!  Meanwhile, at my house, we were decorating and cleaning and prepping for everyone to get there.

The men all get back from fishing, drop my dad off and head to our house. Yes, I had 4 sweaty, sun burnt, mildly smelly men in my house for a second. Everyone showered and changed and waiting (im)patiently for the guest of honor to arrive. My sister and I were REALLY antsy waiting for my mom to bring him over...we ended up accidentally isolating ourselves while waiting! OOPS! We were nervous...looking back - i don't know what we had to be nervous about...maybe because we had worked so hard to keep it a secret for 6-7 weeks and were worried he somehow knew?? Who knows! 

As hard as my sister and I worked, I can't imagine what it was like for my mom...she lived with this secret all locked away while spending every day with my daddy. She busted her BUTT getting contact information, getting out the invitations, setting up a faux pampered chef party, and keeping him from having any idea =) PLUS the catering, the beer, the ideas...sheesh! Mommy - you are so awesome! I do NOT know how you kept the secret!!!!! 

The man had NO. CLUE. that there was a party waiting for him after his full day of off shore fishing....

 

Not everyone made it into the picture =/ OOPS!!!
We were all waiting to shout "surprise!"

 

My sister and I are a bunch of babies - we cried!!! 

 

At the end of it all, EVERYONE was exhausted but he swears he didn't know - didn't have any sort of inkling.  To be honest, even if he did, I hope he would tell us he didn't =) we worked our tails off keeping this secret.  It became especially hard as my dad and I started running together. Something would be said that would make me think about the party; at which point i would become so focused on NOT saying anything about the party that I would just quit talking. 

I am so thankful to those who were involved in getting him out of the house, to those who were able to attend, and to EVERYONE who was able to keep this quiet!! 

And Mommy - seriously, BEST IDEA EVER!!!! He is so lucky to have an amazing wife =) PLUS super awesome kids...just sayin'!

PS: keeping 30 people from eating blow pops from the '50 sucks' thing was ALMOST impossible! Thank goodness there were some left over that I could hand out!!!! 

Have you ever thrown a surprise party?
Was it successful?